Trip reports
DAWN CHORUS
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
It was still dark enough to need torchlight when tying bootlaces but the sky was lightening rapidly and birds were already singing.
Below the deafening notes of blackbirds, robins and wrens, our guide Jimmy had spotted the monotonous chirring of a grasshopper warbler. As we set off to track it down, a tawny owl hooted several times, on his way home to bed, no doubt, and a reed bunting chinked from the field margin. Most of us managed to hear the grasshopper warbler eventually, once we were much closer. It really does sound like a fisherman reeling in his line. No-one actually saw it but we knew exactly where it was: in a clump of low-growing hawthorn bushes at the side of a meadow. In the same habitat, a whitethroat was scratching out a tune and a blackcap was giving his all, the first of many whose singing post we passed.
From further away came the bark of a pheasant and the harsh croak of a crow, mingled with the soothing tones of a wood pigeon. We also heard the calls of Canada geese and collared doves. As we waded through the grass, thigh-high in places, towards the wooded border of the canal, a dunnock was singing, then a willow warbler took up the tune. A goldfinch twittered high among the hawthorns and, across the canal, we could hear a garden warbler. We saw him, too, dropping out of a birch tree into a bramble patch. Magpies chattered from the woodland edge beside the towpath.
A solitary swan was feeding on the canal with a pair of mallard, and a flotilla of adolescent ducklings came begging for food. They caught up with us again, later, scooping up some of the tadpoles swarming like algal blooms near the surface. Some way ahead, a heron fished for his breakfast.
By this time it had grown much lighter and we heard, then saw, a small group of long-tailed tits in the branches close by. A song thrush did his best to drown out everything else but a chiffchaff, blue tit and great tit (pitured) gave him a run for his money. Back in the woods (and how beautiful the beeches were in the early morning light) a great spotted woodpecker coughed abruptly several times and a chaffinch chirped, while a skylark poured out his song above a nearby field. A mistle thrush flew up into a tree beside the last two walkers while a moorhen swam across a small pond of liquid green.
I realise this account gives the totally misleading impression that these birds were singing one at a time, when, actually, they were all part of a great eruption of sound, especially during the first half of the walk. It was only thanks to the expertise of Jimmy and other members of the group that we were able to untangle individual songs. It was a wonderful experience which more than rewarded the effort of the early start.